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Preface: The Declaration of Redigination

THE RED MANIFESTO

The Rights and Responsibilities of Indigenous Americans

Preface: The Declaration of Redigination

We are the descendants of the first peoples to reach these magnificent shores in North and South America. Over half a millennia, our peoples and indigenous peoples across this planet have been victim to persecution, subjugation, and the outright theft of land and resources on a scale that mankind had never seen. Throughout our interactions with European colonial empires, our peoples have been given imposed names: savage, indian, redskin. The color red holds significant historical meaning to indigenous-Americans and therefore, all the peoples of indigenous-American lineage are hereby referred to as members of the red race.

We make this declaration:

When, in the course of human events, peoples of the earth have been prey to the evils of subjugation and persecution at the hands of another, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare their sovereign rights and responsibilities are inherent to free peoples of the Earth.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness.

Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly, all experience has shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security.

Such has been the patient sufferance of these nations; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former systems of government. The history of the present nations of America is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these sovereign peoples. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world.

Under the guise of conquest, red peoples have lost their right to govern their lands, despite the imperial claims of foreign nations having been historically exaggerated and only accepted by nations foreign to the Americas.

Formal agreements made between our nations and European empires have been abrogated on their own whim and when suits their interests.

Borders of our nations have been ignored and disrespected by the settling of our lands by foreign invaders, who have in large part only met our generosity and acceptance with abuse and the coveting of our rich lands and resources.

They have met our wishes to self-determine and with unyielding violence and outright barbarism.

They have slaughtered our peoples without remorse in the deliberate attempt to cleanse the world of the red race.

They have forbidden the right of sovereign peoples to determine the laws that govern their society.

They have imposed and dictated qualifications of being indigenous towards the goal of extinction, and claim the right to terminate said indigenous status.

They have outlawed the overt practice of culture and the sacred right of worshiping one’s religion has been constrained and determined heretic.

The right of ownership to art, artifacts, and human remains have been denied to indigenous peoples.

The protection of sacred lands has been second to the pursuit of greed through the extraction of our natural resources.

In every stage of these oppressions we have petitioned for redress in the most humble terms: our repeated petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. An empire, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

We, therefore, the peoples of the Red Republic, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the name, and by the authority of the good people of these nations, solemnly publish and declare, that our peoples are, and of right ought to be sovereign in determining the future of our peoples. As free peoples, they have full power to, abrogate from any formal agreements, establish commerce, and to do all other acts and things which sovereign states may of right do. And for the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor.

The Red Manifesto is an ongoing political treatise as part of the inter-nation collaboration on Red Republic. Our publications are grounded in historical context and are influenced by the indigenous paradigm.

The manifesto will continue to be updated and maintained online in preparation for print publishing.